4 ms·

This seems dramatic. Why not just cancel the Clinton administration's sinister provisions Higher Education Amendments of 1998 (the 1998 HEA) which made student

This seems dramatic. Why not just cancel the Clinton administration's sinister provisions Higher Education Amendments of 1998 (the 1998 HEA) which made student debt non-dischargeable in bankruptcy? They sold out all the students with that.

dmitrygr 9y ago
When people graduate from college, they basically have nothing yet. They haven't had time to acquire anything. This would make it trivial to get free education at the taxpayers' expense. Declare bankruptcy on graduation day, and then move on with your life.
- dnautics 9y ago
  Sure, and the only way you're incentivised to do such stupidity is if the cost of education is unbearably steep. Do you do that for a school that's 100k a year? Probably. For one that's 10k a year? Probably not. Also it wouldn't be taxpayer expense, if it were a privately given loan.
  - dmitrygr 9y ago
    Have you gone to college in America? Did you hang out with somebody outside of Science and Mathematics departments? Plenty of people go to college here just for the fun experience. They go there for the bars, fraternity/sorority parties, sex, drugs, alcohol, etc. They don't have a single care in the world about what happens after college. They don't really care what it costs because they don't pay it. One way or the other. To summarize, it wouldn't be about purposefully defrauding the taxpayers. It's just that that thought would never even come up.
- threepipeproblm 9y ago
  That wasn't a big problem before 1998. There are many disincentives to bankruptcy which is why people who are not broke or those with prospects to earn aren't lining up to do it. If a college actually prepares a student for the job market they would be insane to do this; if it doesn't they may have no recourse. Very few forms of debt are excluded from bankruptcy. IMO it's far from humane to make college, of all things, in that category. Should those who pay huge $$$ for American degrees and then can't get jobs be forced to pay the bloated costs despite having to go back to a retail job where they can barely survive? The original act takes a civil liberty, which most people enjoy, from a vulnerable group. Young people just starting out who may have made a huge investment that didn't pan out... being unable to declare bankruptcy prevents such young people from getting back on sound financial ground for potentially decades. It's embarrassing that the Clintons haven't taken more heat for this, arguably nothing but an act of crony capitalism.
  - dmitrygr 9y ago
    What sort of the job does a bachelor's degree in art history or classic greek literature prepare one for? (A PhD in those fields could make one a professor, but a BA does nothing)
    - threepipeproblm 9y ago
      If lenders didn't expect to be repaid unconditionally, they would be less likely to lend money to college degrees that were likely to be financially worthless. This is as it should be. Before the modern financial aid situation, some people still managed to get degrees with more of a classical academic focus (i.e. without regard to market considerations). There were fewer of them, but then the odds they had to go work at Denny's afterwards were also probably lower.
    - samcodes 9y ago
      As someone with degrees is math and physics, I used to think this. I don't anymore. I think that those fields offer many opportunities to examine and analyse ideas, and that is important.
defen 9y ago
Student debt is a nonsecured loan (you can't repossess their education/degree if they default). The only reasonable way to get what you're asking is to allow lenders to vet whom they are lending to. In other words, allow lenders to deny a loan to someone with no assets who wants $150,000 to study art history.

dmitrygr 9y ago

When people graduate from college, they basically have nothing yet. They haven't had time to acquire anything. This would make it trivial to get free education at the taxpayers' expense. Declare bankruptcy on graduation day, and then move on with your life.

dnautics 9y ago
Sure, and the only way you're incentivised to do such stupidity is if the cost of education is unbearably steep. Do you do that for a school that's 100k a year? Probably. For one that's 10k a year? Probably not. Also it wouldn't be taxpayer expense, if it were a privately given loan.
- dmitrygr 9y ago
  Have you gone to college in America? Did you hang out with somebody outside of Science and Mathematics departments? Plenty of people go to college here just for the fun experience. They go there for the bars, fraternity/sorority parties, sex, drugs, alcohol, etc. They don't have a single care in the world about what happens after college. They don't really care what it costs because they don't pay it. One way or the other. To summarize, it wouldn't be about purposefully defrauding the taxpayers. It's just that that thought would never even come up.
threepipeproblm 9y ago
That wasn't a big problem before 1998. There are many disincentives to bankruptcy which is why people who are not broke or those with prospects to earn aren't lining up to do it. If a college actually prepares a student for the job market they would be insane to do this; if it doesn't they may have no recourse. Very few forms of debt are excluded from bankruptcy. IMO it's far from humane to make college, of all things, in that category. Should those who pay huge $$$ for American degrees and then can't get jobs be forced to pay the bloated costs despite having to go back to a retail job where they can barely survive? The original act takes a civil liberty, which most people enjoy, from a vulnerable group. Young people just starting out who may have made a huge investment that didn't pan out... being unable to declare bankruptcy prevents such young people from getting back on sound financial ground for potentially decades. It's embarrassing that the Clintons haven't taken more heat for this, arguably nothing but an act of crony capitalism.
- dmitrygr 9y ago
  What sort of the job does a bachelor's degree in art history or classic greek literature prepare one for? (A PhD in those fields could make one a professor, but a BA does nothing)
  - threepipeproblm 9y ago
    If lenders didn't expect to be repaid unconditionally, they would be less likely to lend money to college degrees that were likely to be financially worthless. This is as it should be. Before the modern financial aid situation, some people still managed to get degrees with more of a classical academic focus (i.e. without regard to market considerations). There were fewer of them, but then the odds they had to go work at Denny's afterwards were also probably lower.
  - samcodes 9y ago
    As someone with degrees is math and physics, I used to think this. I don't anymore. I think that those fields offer many opportunities to examine and analyse ideas, and that is important.

defen 9y ago

Student debt is a nonsecured loan (you can't repossess their education/degree if they default). The only reasonable way to get what you're asking is to allow lenders to vet whom they are lending to. In other words, allow lenders to deny a loan to someone with no assets who wants $150,000 to study art history.